I do like my current job (when I actually understand the lectures) but it's not a full time job as I'm only used during term-time. But yeah, to have a wonderful dream is terrific, but so many of them are like soap bubbles that burst, beautiful as they are. Still, if you can draw and I can write we could do comic books / graphic novels together. I can supply the story and you could turn it into something new - visual alchemy. That too might falter and burst but to do it for the pleasure of doing it can also be something wonderful. I have never written for publication, but for the pleasure of crafting a story. Of making each sentence work right and bringing out the textures/music of language.

I'd love to learn fashion design, especially historical fashion but apparently I'd need good figure drawing and I haven't! I am working up to buying my own fabrics and patterns. Then I shall learn the practice and hope that may teach me enough.

I find I tolerate my dad mostly. He has such strong habits that don't help and he sometimes just doesn't think when he really ought to. It used to drive mum wild - now it drives me wild!! I am sure it's both ways, he tolerates me too. But I would love my own home - a home of my own choosing... sadly they are using the Royal Pavilion at Brighton!

Rainey,

Well there are a few guides for the bigger museums already, but actually that's not a bad idea. Especially for the smaller ones. Then it's an issue of finance, but if I did a few of them by region then it might be possible. Doing art museums (my strength) would also bring publicity to many. There are lots of unknown gems in collections so it might be an idea. I would need to travel tho' and that would cost quite a bit.

I couldn't blog, I'm not computer savvy enough (I'm NO Clotilde!) But I shall write and see if I can finish properly the novels I have and short stories. Then I will send them to publishers and get an agent. The rest is whatever happens. I'm happy to just write and have time to do it. But I do need to mix with other people too for my own sake / mental health.

At the moment I am in search of a new dream, with perhaps a little more hard realism at its base. I am not broken, I got to work in museums after all even if it didn't work out and I had a lot of fun along the way. It didn't last but new things will come along. For the moment I need to be where I am.

David,

I can imagine you as a superb nurse. My mum was a nurse too and then a health visitor... all her life she wanted to work to help others._________________Confusion comes fitted as standard.

I don't know about you, but if I saw a guidebook entitled "The Museum Lover's Guide to London" on a bookshelf, I'd sigh to myself and say "FINALLY, someone is speaking my language!" It would be a dream if that guidebook would have day by day itineraries with all kinds of fun facts and history about the museums and things in them along with a chapter on nice places to shop and eat along the way. After all, academically-minded art and culture lovers need a guide too!_________________"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" --- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Griffin - you can blog and I think it would be great if you started. I'm the most hopeless person at the computer but I manage to blog. Blogging has brought so many wonderful people and new friends into my life. I use Typepad for which I pay a small monthly fee but blogger is free. Just go to blogger.com and start. I would look forward to reading you each day._________________Barbara

I would look forward to reading the Daily Griff as well! If you can post on a forum, you can blog.

Comics & graphic novels are a good way to go - and having someone to collaborate with on a first project is a big plus. My writing stinks, so I'd need someone like you with an amiable voice.

As for figure drawing, I've seen some fashion designers' drawings and they're not especially strong on the pencil skills. More concept & gesture and the mind fills in the rest!

Maybe the answer is in the question - if your current job suits you (mostly), can you expand on it? Make your own business of it, hire another note-taker or two to help cover the additional students that your clever marketing would bring you...?

But, you're right. Staying put when you're a feeling a little lost is sometimes better that getting yourself into trouble by impulsively trying to get un-lost. 'Bide your time' sounds like good advice all around. (I'll take it!)

Yes, Griffin, blog away! every day! Think how it would focus you--self-imposed discipline to force you to present yourself and your ideas to the world (as opposed to losing yourself in someone else's.)

It is hard to read this thread today--Judy started with her great success story but then yikes--some sad soul baring revelations from both you and sweetbabyjames. (SBJ--so different from your post here last May!)

It's hard to know what works in another country--is the note-taking something you can "market"?--I had the impression you're being paid as a government worker. It would be nice if you could earn a living teaching "successful" people about the finer things!

I saw the oddest book online yesterday, http://www.nickigreenberg.com/gatsby.shtml (found it through the Perth Writers). Not allowed for sale in the UK or USA, but soon coming to Canada.. an illustrated "The Great Gatsby".. UNusual!

sweetbabyjames you have a blog now! I'm curious though, because I think you are a vegetarian, why you've called it "biskits & gravy"!?

GP - yes, I have a blog. It started as a requirement for one of my art classes, but since everything is upside-down this year, I decided to try using it as a personal journal as well. It's mainly to make myself sit down as often as I can to think of ONE GOOD THING to get me through the days/weeks.

As long as I've been a vegetarian, my go-to breakfast for guests is vegetarian biscuits 'n gravy - and no one has ever guessed it wasn't real meat sausage without my telling them! It's also our standard soul food & my daughter's favorite breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I'd forgotten I was part of this thread last May till you mentioned it - I went back and read myself just now. Strange & funny to hear my own optimistic words from not very long ago.

Good point about marketing across borders. I guess the whole "Cool Britannia" campaign was quite the marketing flop, apparently! They overlooked Griffin's quirky wit - could've been a top selling point for their brand!

Who, me? Blog? Well but so many blogs have great pix to go with them. Had a lovely moment in one lecture when the lecturer said, 'You all have mobile phones, don't you?' and I suddenly realised I was the only one shaking my head 'no'!!

The note-taking is done through the University's own Disabilities and Additional Needs Service. It's now law here aiming to slow if not outright stop discrimination against those with disabilities. I am one among a bunch of note-takers.

Harpospeaking,

The Museum Lover's Guide to London probably hasn't been done because all the main museums in London have their own guides. But still, there are smaller museums in London that don't. There are some amazing museums outside of London that don't as well. So that might be a possibility, but getting to them would require money that at the moment I don't have. So not impossible but it may have to wait awhile until I have the money.

So anyway... there I was, wondering what to do next and now I have all these possibilities. Truly it has been said, cast your questions on the internet and the answers will come back a thousand fold... or at least something similar was said... I think!

Cool Britannia was a flop because Blair got involved and there just isn't any such thing as a cool politician. No, not even Barack Obama smart guy tho' he may be. And certainly not Blair under any circumstances.

GP
I love getting lost in other people's ideas and words. Whether it's the Mighty Breadmaker Rainey (Ma Rainey to her kids!) or the Fabulous Debbie or Dynamic David, well just about all of you here. Sites like this are second family affairs (Well I'd love Clotilde as my sister, who wouldn't) and that's what keeps me coming back._________________Confusion comes fitted as standard.

Joined: 18 Oct 2004Posts: 1654Location: Within view of Elliot Bay, The Olympics and every ship in the Sound

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject:

So true, there is no such thing as a "cool" politician, proved with the Colbert/Obama "grit off".

I agree with the masses, Daily Griff would be fantastic.

I also do not have a cell phone, got rid of it four years ago. I have to get a new one soon though, but I'm not really looking forward to that leash._________________"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

I have a cellphone but i don't know the number on it. I can't use it to ring out as it's a pre pay and has no money on it, but people can call me. I carry it so Bryan can ring me to find where I am in the shopping centre._________________Barbara

Griffin- Are you thinking about this, babe? I am! For example, this afternoon when I was doing some sewing (or rather, slowly approaching the sewing as I'm really intimidated in cutting upholstery fabric) I was thinking that there's a whole new market in materials about American museums for European tourists whose Euros are now going much farther in this country where our dollar has become crap.

Think what a dearth of info for Europeans there may be and what your own unique voice could bring to it. Then think how exotic and sexy your multi-cultural persona and European museum credentials would be to Americans. Hint: a British accent will get you anything.

So, it could be, that some internet research to rough out a proposal could interest American publishers/museums enough to get you the access to the collections that would flesh out your guides._________________God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. -- Garrison Keillor

Jumping in a bit late, but... Griffin, I agree writing a museums/galleries guidebook would be an excellent idea. (How about a Pre-Raphaelite guide for the whole country? I could really have used that when I was doing my PhD!) I can understand your hesitation with regard to money, but I just had a thought - why not first offer your talents to an established series like the Rough Guides or the Blue Guides? I don't know how the latter works, but my impression is that a lot of the Rough Guides writers are freelance. That way you'd get paid to write - and to travel!

The formatting and such like does make me nervous but if the possibility was there then I probably would do it.

Rachel,

I am sooo sorry I hadn't done a Pre-Raph guide before you did your PhD! I would have loved doing that a lot!! Tho' with your PhD you could do that now. Your PhD and being V&A experienced would help I would have thought too.

Freelance, I would think means you pay to travel and write and they pay you after. But now you lot have got me thinking about how I do this... see what you've started!!

Doing something on US museums would be fabulous, but how it would happen I'm not sure. Most Brits want to go to the US now to shop rather than visit museums, but I am sure there would be a market for such a guide.

Oh... to blog or to do the guide?! Ohh the agony of choice!!

I have three novels to finish too... ulp! And my costume collection to er, collect. Before this, I wasn't sure what options I had... you've all given me options I hadn't even thought of. So, thank you._________________Confusion comes fitted as standard.